I was extremely disappointed when I fired up LR4 last night. This new Shadows slider pales horribly in comparison to Fill Light. Frankly, it's a wimp!!! For me, Fill Light was magic. I can't tell you how many people would ask "how did you do that" when they looked at my pictures hanging on the wall. It was a perfect tool and one that made LR stand out. Not only did it fulfill its intended purpose of adding just that suble amount of fill, it also was an extremely efficient way to produce an edgy, psuedo HDR, effect. Hopefully Curves will allow close to the same results, but there's no way it will be as easy and reproducable. I kick myself for not having tried the bata version before paying the $69 upgade (thankfully it wasn't $150). If I can't figure this out, I'm heading back to LR3. Do others miss Fill Light like I do?

My experience so far with LR4 is that I don't miss the Fill Light slider one bit, the Shadows slider does what I expect it to do, and I can achieve better image quality using the new LR4 sliders than I could using the LR3 sliders.

I don't miss it at all. You just have to learn how to deal with the new basic controls in PV 2012. In PV 2012 you should use exposure and contrast to get the bulk of the image right. That could mean that you have to apply more exposure than you were used to in PV 2010. If whites are too bright then, tune them downs using the highlights control. Then you can twaek the shadows by pushing up the shadows slider.

The PV 2012 is much better than its predecessor, because it can recover highlights much better (as long as any channel still has information) and it produces far less artefacts, such has halos and double contours.

Ok, I'll have to play around with it a little more. But what I'm hearing is it will take more steps. Even then, I wonder if I'll be able to produce that edgy effect that i so liked with the Fill Light slider.

I miss Fill Light too, but not because of what it can do (the new tools are ultimately better), but because of how fast it could do what takes many of the new tools to do. So I created some presets that I use as a good place to start. They are below.

I don't claim that these will match PV2010 fill light. What I claim is, these applied after import will provide a fill light - like effect similar in strength to fill light of the same name. I used to start many of my images with fill light, and these are a way to get to similar starting points faster.

I miss Fill Light too, but not because of what it can do (the new tools are ultimately better), but because of how fast it could do what takes many of the new tools to do ...

This is my biggest problem with PV2012.

In my theatrical work, lighting changes dramatically from one shot to the next; hundreds of images must be processed individually. Fill Light was a fast correction which worked consistently from one image to the next. PV2012 requires a set of corrections, the effect of which change from one image to the next -- making for a much slower workflow.

The new sliders take a little longer, but now that I am getting use to them, I think the final result is better. They could always have a 'master fill light' that results in the other sliders moving accordingly .

Thanks for the suggested workaround -- but it's still a workaround. Trial-and-error using a long list of presets will still be a lot slower than using a single Fill Light slider.

There's a way around this that may in fact be superior to Fill Light. Scrolling your mouse over a preset while in Develop while the Navigator opens shows a very fast preview of the result of the preset. So slider over and just click when you find the one you want.

There's a way around this that may in fact be superior to Fill Light. Scrolling your mouse over a preset while in Develop while the Navigator opens shows a very fast preview of the result of the preset. So slider over and just click when you find the one you want.

In my theatrical work, lighting changes dramatically from one shot to the next; hundreds of images must be processed individually. Fill Light was a fast correction which worked consistently from one image to the next. PV2012 requires a set of corrections, the effect of which change from one image to the next -- making for a much slower workflow.

One of the reasons LR3 Fill Light works so well is that it adds halo artifacts, which in most cases is not desirable:

For your theatrical work I assume you are dealing with very high dynamic range images (i.e. very dark shadow areas) where the Fill Light halos are helpful. I felt the same way as you on initially using LR 4 Beta, that processing was going to take me at least twice as long to get the same image quality as in LR3. I do interior photography with natural lighting and perhaps a single flash used for "fill" lighting. LR3 Fill Light tool works amazingly well on these high dynamic range images, but I always felt the highlight areas were lacking in detail. After working on some of these images in LR4 final release I'm finding it only takes me slightly longer, and the results are nothing short of remarkable. Without even touching the Tone Controls I'm achieving results that look similar to HDR images, with both highlight and shadow detail that was not achievable in LR3.

Rob Cole has a post on the LR4 Beta forum with some good LR develop tool tips that helped me to speed up my processing:

One of the things I was fond of using the Fill Light adjustment for was to create surreal images like this shot below... I realize the HDR tools in PS can get me there as well, but this was extremely simple, and did not require multiple images. This is what I will miss...

Joe: You could always use the 2010 process for your surreal images and then you will have the process 2010 sliders to hand, including the fill light slider. For other images the process 2012 will be available.

I miss Fill Light too, but not because of what it can do (the new tools are ultimately better), but because of how fast it could do what takes many of the new tools to do. So I created some presets that I use as a good place to start. They are below.

I don't claim that these will match PV2010 fill light. What I claim is, these applied after import will provide a fill light - like effect similar in strength to fill light of the same name. I used to start many of my images with fill light, and these are a way to get to similar starting points faster.

Fill Light 20

Exposure 0.27

Contrast -15

Highlights -10

Shadows +10

Clarity 5

Saturation 5

Fill Light 40

Exposure 0.55

Contrast -30

Highlights -20

Shadows +20

Clarity 10

Saturation 10

Fill Light 60

Exposure 0.83

Contrast -50

Highlights -50

Shadows +50

Clarity 20

Saturation 25

Fill Light 80

Exposure 1.1

Contrast -60

Highlights -50

Shadows +50

Clarity 20

Saturation 25

+1 Lee Jay and as you said a good starting point. I think the bigger issue here and in some of the other improvements is that at some point we need to lock down the basic workflow from version to version in LR. There is the flags discussion, this, the difference in handling PV2012 altogether, etc. At some point we need to not have to go through large learning curves with each turn of the crank.. at least not for the basic functions. Adobe will have to eventfully fit the new functions into the existing controls as best they can. As one of the posters mentioned, something that was somewhat second nature to his job, is totally different now. Thanks again for the tip..

And finessing the other sliders can also influence just how those shadows are filled where...

But, having to toss in

-contrast

+saturation

+clarity

points to a definite weakness in Lr4 shadow handling:

* You can't always get as good fill without sacrificing midtone contrast, and sometimes, you can. Lr3 fill pretty much did the same thing all the time, PV2012 does not: results can be very image dependent.

PS - Pleasing results of Lr3 fill have NOTHING to do with the masking halo artifacts - do not be fooled.

And finessing the other sliders can also influence just how those shadows are filled where...

But, having to toss in

-contrast

+saturation

+clarity

points to a definite weakness in Lr4 shadow handling:

* You can't always get as good fill without sacrificing midtone contrast, and sometimes, you can. Lr3 fill pretty much did the same thing all the time, PV2012 does not: results can be very image dependent.

PS - Pleasing results of Lr3 fill have NOTHING to do with the masking halo artifacts - do not be fooled.

Rob

Rob,

Fair point, and I usually set sharpness, noise and clarity first. I'm tending to adjust using the histogram more and more (did in LR 3 as well) to get myself close to where I want to be.. from there, using the sliders to fine tune hasn't been as huge a difference between 3 and 4 coming at it that way... At least for me.

Well, one of the things I always hated about fill light was that it increased saturation. So I usually applied -vibrance or -saturation along with it. For my own presets, I'll probably remove most or all of the +saturation in the presets I posted above, and probably most of the +clarity as well because I often wasn't too happy with the local contrast enhancement that fill light did (I have a touch of +clarity in my Camera Raw defaults). I posted them this way for people that liked these things about fill light. You are, obviously, free to adjust them to your taste instead of being stuck with what I - or fill light - did.

I think the bigger issue here and in some of the other improvements is that at some point we need to lock down the basic workflow from version to version in LR.

Not gonna happen and I'm sure glad that the engineers continue to advance image quality...PV 2003 to PV 2010 had a major impact. No, it didn't have a huge impact of tone and color (it did have some impact). Now with PV 2012, they have made great strides on the tone mapping capability of the adjustments. Do you really want to not take advantage of tis? Simple, keep using PV 2010 and use your old workflow. There's a reason the engineers have committed to maintaining the rendering people have applied to their images. If you want to take advantage of the new adjustments, you'll simply have to come to terms they work differently...they couldn't keep the old adjustments while updating the fundamental processing.

Look, we're at an interesting age in photography where over time, the processing of raw images is improving. In the old days, your negs were fixed. Now with raw we can go back and take advantage of the progress of new processing making our original raws better over time. And yes, with change comes, well, change. I really hope the LR/ACR engineers don't slow down…and I know they still have some tricks up their sleeves, so expect more changes in the future.

Well, one of the things I always hated about fill light was that it increased saturation.

The problem is -contrast.

Yes, Lr3 fill had shadow color integrity issues which are solved by Lr4.

But, the primary saturation loss is due to the substantial negative contrast, NOT the repaired shadow fill coloring.

None of this matters to me anymore. I finally figured out that if you have to drop contrast to get the fill you need, then you are doing it wrong. Hint: The answer lies with the blacks & whites sliders.

PS - I got no problems using clarity for supplementation - that's what it's for. But if it's required just to get shadows filled enough, then, again: you're doing it wrong.

...using the sliders to fine tune hasn't been as huge a difference between 3 and 4 coming at it that way...

Easier and less tricky that way, but you will not be using Lr4 to it's fullest potential that way.

To get the most from PV2012, you must use the basic sliders first to do the heavy lifting, and tone curve to fine tune. Locals if you have time and/or need to...

The reason, in general, is that the sliders have sophisticated programming for recombining tones in a manner that preserves tones in one zone when adjusting the adjacent zones, so to speak. Tone curve can only increase contrast in one zone by decreasing it in another.

I think the bigger issue here and in some of the other improvements is that at some point we need to lock down the basic workflow from version to version in LR.

Not gonna happen and I'm sure glad that the engineers continue to advance image quality...PV 2003 to PV 2010 had a major impact. No, it didn't have a huge impact of tone and color (it did have some impact). Now with PV 2012, they have made great strides on the tone mapping capability of the adjustments. Do you really want to not take advantage of tis? Simple, keep using PV 2010 and use your old workflow. There's a reason the engineers have committed to maintaining the rendering people have applied to their images. If you want to take advantage of the new adjustments, you'll simply have to come to terms they work differently...they couldn't keep the old adjustments while updating the fundamental processing.

Look, we're at an interesting age in photography where over time, the processing of raw images is improving. In the old days, your negs were fixed. Now with raw we can go back and take advantage of the progress of new processing making our original raws better over time. And yes, with change comes, well, change. I really hope the LR/ACR engineers don't slow down…and I know they still have some tricks up their sleeves, so expect more changes in the future.

I'm not taking anything away from either the desire for the continued improvements in LR or the the ability of the coders to build it. My point was that while change is a good thing, disruption isn't, and there's a fine balance between those two. As more people become dependant (we all hope) on LR for their daily lives, there is also a responsible position Adobe has to take to help protect that for the people who have invested in the product(s). Adobe certainly could redesign the whole thing if they wantedwith each new version, but I'm not sure that's the best strategy to build a loyal following.

I'm also not suggesting abandoning change, but I am suggesting that at some point there needs to be a level of certainty going forward, or a straight forward conversion from point A to point B. Yes, people can still leave their workflow in 2010, but then why upgrade to Version 4? and if they do want to upgrade to V4 and use PV2010 there and start to use PV2012 for new, well now you've got two different processes and workflows and presets, etc. Not very accomodating to the end user.. it may be powerful and full of new stuff, but if it becomes more of a distruption than a benefit then it really isn't a benefit any longer.

...using the sliders to fine tune hasn't been as huge a difference between 3 and 4 coming at it that way...

Easier and less tricky that way, but you will not be using Lr4 to it's fullest potential that way.

To get the most from PV2012, you must use the basic sliders first to do the heavy lifting, and tone curve to fine tune. Locals if you have time and/or need to...

The reason, in general, is that the sliders have sophisticated programming for recombining tones in a manner that preserves tones in one zone when adjusting the adjacent zones, so to speak. Tone curve can only increase contrast in one zone by decreasing it in another.

Rob

Rob,

I'll have to play with it that way and see if I notice a difference in getting to a better end result. I guess I was looking at it as making the adjustments visually by using the histogram display was directly moving those sliders.. kind of my way of doing the heavy lifting first.. I'll try it the other way around though. Thanks.

I'm also not suggesting abandoning change, but I am suggesting that at some point there needs to be a level of certainty going forward, or a straight forward conversion from point A to point B.

That's where your expectation are a bit unrealistic...while PV 2003 to 2010 was relatively mild in tonality, the fundamental changes in PV 2012 made the matching of PV 2010 to PV 2012 is impossible. The underlying algorithms are fundamentally different so no exact match can be made. That's the reality...the engineers tried real hard to do a 1:1 mapping of tones but the adjustments are simply too different.

So, if you have images whose PV 2010 settings are "optimal" keep them...don't update the conversion. For new images you'll get the PV 2012 as default. Learn how to use the new controls and see whether or not there's substantial improvement (for me, there is, YMMV).

But the bottom line is, expect change as processing becomes better. You can't stand in the middle of a river and not epect the river not to run by you...adapt, adopt and move on...use PV 2012 where it's a good thing, don't when you have already committed to a rendering (unless you want to play).

As to bringing back the old Fill Light (and its many problems) ain't gonna happen...move on, these are not the droids you were searching for...

I'm also not suggesting abandoning change, but I am suggesting that at some point there needs to be a level of certainty going forward, or a straight forward conversion from point A to point B.

That's where your expectation are a bit unrealistic...while PV 2003 to 2010 was relatively mild in tonality, the fundamental changes in PV 2012 made the matching of PV 2010 to PV 2012 is impossible. The underlying algorithms are fundamentally different so no exact match can be made. That's the reality...the engineers tried real hard to do a 1:1 mapping of tones but the adjustments are simply too different.

So, if you have images whose PV 2010 settings are "optimal" keep them...don't update the conversion. For new images you'll get the PV 2012 as default. Learn how to use the new controls and see whether or not there's substantial improvement (for me, there is, YMMV).

But the bottom line is, expect change as processing becomes better. You can't stand in the middle of a river and not epect the river not to run by you...adapt, adopt and move on...use PV 2012 where it's a good thing, don't when you have already committed to a rendering (unless you want to play).

As to bringing back the old Fill Light (and its many problems) ain't gonna happen...move on, these are not the droids you were searching for...

Jeff,

I'm mixing business reality in the middle of your stream of technology, plain and simple. I understand both sides, use what the engineers give me the best I can, but that doesn't mean engineers have free reign to change the world to the lens' they'd like to use, hence the need for the sales and marketing departments as well. As for your "keep the 2010" and "start the new with 2012" that describes exactly the duplication of effort as well as requiring two different thought trains when it comes to tonality, and don't accidently change one of your 2010s to a 2012 and hope to have it go back exactly to where it came from by switching it back to 2010.. at least my experience is once done regarding that, it doesn't quite "undone" too easily... (and yes, I know, make a virtual copy first... hmm, seems like we're managing two workflows?)

Jeff simply said, leave your heritage of images as they are. Do not batch-convert them.

When you need an old one again you can decide if it merits a new try in PV2012, which would be only if you think it could be optimized further.

That is managing 1 workflow to me: the new one for new images.

No?

So business reality in LR4 means: will I keep my usual editing speed for at least the same image quality?

Cornelia,

Thanks. My initial point was not just the PV2010 to PV2012 discussion, but just one in general about keeping an interface stable to minimize disruption when moving to a new version. In the case of the two PVs though, there is a significant difference in how they operate so that, in the simplest sense, we're dealing with two different approaches to tonality (at least as long as you're mixing both PV types in the same catalog). I'm not even saying the new PV is bad, because I don't think it is. I'm trying to think of an anology and the first thing that comes to mind is if Adobe radically changed how Curves or USM changed to the point where Actions you'd been using for years and across versions became broken. In a sense that is true here as well.

@dhphoto2012 - I like the new controls as well :-) but yes, with 2012 PV there is a performance impact right now, and I'm on an 8 core with 16GB of RAM. I'm sure they'll tune it further in upcoming point releases. I'm not seeing anywhere near the difference though as going from 2.7 to 3.0..

My initial point was not just the PV2010 to PV2012 discussion, but just one in general about keeping an interface stable to minimize disruption when moving to a new version.

But if the underlying algorithms have changed, how do you expect Adobe to deal with that? Ignore the potential improvements or let them lay fallow in the field?

If you wish to embrace change, it requires, well, change ya know?

Otherwise PV 2010 is still there (if you need it–the odds are it will stay as long as you may need it). The ACR/Lr engineers should be congratulated for keeping that option in place...while still advancing the art.

My initial point was not just the PV2010 to PV2012 discussion, but just one in general about keeping an interface stable to minimize disruption when moving to a new version.

But if the underlying algorithms have changed, how do you expect Adobe to deal with that? Ignore the potential improvements or let them lay fallow in the field?

If you wish to embrace change, it requires, well, change ya know?

Otherwise PV 2010 is still there (if you need it–the odds are it will stay as long as you may need it). The ACR/Lr engineers should be congratulated for keeping that option in place...while still advancing the art.

Jeff,

So much waxing poetic about "standing in a river" or "lay fallow in the field". That wasn't my point nor what I said in any of my comments. I totally understand the need for change and managed long term multi-year developement strategies for a really not too small a company. Simply, again, there comes a responsibility to present that change in as non-disruptive a manner as possible, and that was my only point. So, let's take the PV (and maybe this was possible, plausible or not).. I'm glad that both are there (just like 2003 was there in LR3). I'm not sure I'm thrilled with some issues of going back and forth, but while related to this, not necessarily where I'm going. If it were possible, it "might" have been better if there was a bridge to 2012 vs. an either/or situation. Sometimes that level of change cannot be accomodated, sometimes with additional thought, it can. Somewhere in Adobe, I'm hoping someone is thinking about the longer term strategies for LR and PS, ACR, etc.. I'm hoping they're not just thinking about what's the next tinker they want to add to the next version regardless of future directions and toward THAT end, one of the considerations is the user's experience with regard to performance, reliability, consistency, etc.

I'll also say Adobe, for the most part, has done an excellent job with LR (putting some performance issues aside for a moment) and again, as I said, as a product matures, one of the things to consider is how to introduce change without disruption, as best and wherever possible. EOL

I feel your pain. LR 1.0 started with fairly straightforward Basic tools in its Develop module, which have pretty much carried over unchanged into LR 2 and LR 3 version. LR 4 is definitely a bold departure from the familiar Develop tools, and for this reason alone it's understandable why so many people are objecting to the new PV2012 Develop module in LR4.

So what could Adobe done instead? They could have launched LR 4 with the same Develop tools slightly enhanced, withnew Map and Book modules, but providing only marginally better image quality. No question this would have caused most professional LR users to criticize Adobe for catering to the amateur photography market simply to make more money. Having worked as a computer system design engineer for 20 years and then another 25 years in sales & marketing positions, I’ve seen many bad business decisions made concerning product features and product pricing. IMHO–Adobe has taken a bold but necessary step by departing from the “original” LR Develop tools to make LR a better tool for professional photographers.

There is no question that migrating images to LR 4 from previous LR versions is going to be challenging, and I believe this is where we should all be focusing our talent, time and energy. If you truly feel the benefits in LR 4 are out-weighed by the time required to use and/or learn the new tools, then stick with PV2010 in LR 4, or use LR3 and wait for LR 5. This in fact may be the best solution for people who process 100s or even 1,000s of images daily in their business practice, at least until the Adobe community has established some good migration techniques and LR 4 tool usage to speed the processes. I am sure Adobe is listening and will offer migration and productivity improvements to LR 4 in future update releases.

I’m still taking this one-day-at-time and processing only new shoot images in LR 4 with PV2012, as I understand it there is an issue when migrating LR 3 catalogs to LR 4 concerning Tone Curve adjustments:

Until this apparent bug is corrected by Adobe I won’t be importing my LR 3 catalog into LR 4, and I suggest others should investigate if this may create issues when importing their catalogs. That said, I love the improvement to both highlight and shadow detail that PV2012 produces. I look forward to getting more experience with the new Develop tools, and useful tips right here in the Adobe Lightroom forums on ways to speed up conversion of existing images from PV2010 to PV2012…..once this bug has been fixed.

I think if one could readily and always get similar results to Lr3-fill using PV2012, there wouldn't be all the kicking and screaming.

When people try the suggestions and still can't get as good results as they used to it fuels anger and frustration (aggravated by people telling them they should like PV2012 results better, since they are better, and if you don't like them better then there is something wrong with you, and not PV2012, 'cause it's better..., and anyway you can still use PV2010 so what are you complaining about?).

In my opinion, PV2012 can be very very tricky. That's more the issue, as I see it.

It took me over a hundred hours to become reasonably proficient with PV2012. That's a pretty steep learning curve.

Yes, there are some who say they learned it very quickly and never found it particularly tricky..., but I can assure you there are many others whose experience has been or will be more like mine.

Reminder: It was, from the beginning, and still is, easy to get in the ball-park quickly on most photos. It's the optimal results that are more elusive, and dealing with the corner cases.

Summary:

========

The issue with PV2012 is not that it's different (UI-wise), but that it can be so tricky to learn and get the pot-of-gold at the end of the slippery rainbow.

Just as a followup to my origianl posting: I sat down with LR4 and specifically challenged PV2012 to allow me to recreate the effect in the Chicogo pic I posted above. I'm happy to say I got close enough for my satifiaction. I did it by maxing out shadows, cranking up exposure, slightly increasing blacks, dialing up clarity and finally uping vibrance. Incidently, I noticed that with PV2012, increasing clarity steals color saturation at a much higher rate, so it's necesary to give it back using either saturation or vibrance.

Note: I have to say, it was extremely easy to switch between PV2010 and PV2012; and I was happy to see that when clicking on any given image, LR4 automatically switches the mode to match that use to create the image. In other words, if today you were to modify one image using PV2010 and another with PV2012, LR4 remembers which mode was used and automatically switched to it when selecting one of the images. This is very slick!